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Distributed, independent, economical, efficient, reliable, resilient, flexible, adaptable, technical, clean, redundant, modern, profitable, renewable ready, and doh, smart! What is this? A microgrid? No, it’s Michaels Energy. We’re back[1]. The Rant is back, and we’re ready to rock and roll! Let us take a look back a year and briefly review what has progressed inRead more

The Wall Street Journal published an interesting article last week – it would be fascinating if it weren’t sadly true. The title: Everyone Hates Customer Service. It is a perfect addition to my continuation of last week’s post regarding innovation with electric utilities. Are Electric Utilities in for a Taxi Ride? Tales of Customer ServiceRead more

The number of bipartisan political issues that can be counted on one finger is shrinking fast. All this while the definition of bipartisan has been lowered to a single vote from the opposing party. Energy efficiency is not among the bipartisan issue (sic). It is unfortunately limited to the left-wing of the political spectrum asRead more

I call your attention to the brilliant marvel of engineering shown in the image below. This model was developed before most of you were born. It is the little diesel engine that could – get 60 mpg, in my second car – a 1984 Ford Escort Diesel. Most people didn’t even know they existed, butRead more

Ohio lawmakers are again at the beck and call of deregulated power producing titans as they pass a nuclear and coal plant bailout at the expense of energy efficiency. They also dumped mandates for renewable resources. Almost simultaneously, the Institute for Energy Research (IER) published this brand new report, which compares levelized cost of electricityRead more

In the last two Rant posts, we learned that our 40-year-old program evaluation frameworks need to change to capture greater, real impacts. Rather than improving programs and accurately determining impacts, archaic evaluation methodologies are impeding progress toward greater energy savings. It may be like solving the percolating national debt crisis, but I will attack thisRead more

Rant topics come in waves. I have no control over how or when others follow what I’m writing, but when they publish something related, I pounce. We’re bleeding-edge fresh here, so I must respond to ACEEE’s most recent published paper, Reducing Energy Waste through Municipally Led Behavior Change Programs. This week is not only aboutRead more

Last week in Behavior Freak, we explored the ratio of energy savings to beer consumption at the Delta house (answer = χ/∞ = 0 ). Specifically, that post explained why college students’ only motivation to save energy is currency, and absent currency, the needle does not move. This week we explore more interesting behavioral success withRead more

E2e, and I have no idea what that stands for, is a joint initiative of University of California-Berkeley, The University of Chicago, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Their charter is to assess and quantify the energy efficiency gap between estimated, or ex-ante savings, and observed or measured savings; kind of like the Energy Rant attemptsRead more

Show me the money, Jerry! That is what I have to say about building energy performance. I don’t care for bling and doohickeys. What is the bottom line at the meter? I surmise that ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager[1] was conceived and developed with the best of intentions to score and rank buildings, at the meterRead more

In the past couple of months, Energy Rant introduced pay-for-performance[1] (P4P)trends in our industry. See Tectonic Power and Pace, and Tooling Pay for Performance. It reminds me of the overused engineering adage: we provide services that are fast, cheap, and good. Pick two. In the case of P4P, “performance” may include goal achievement, cost-effectiveness, fairness,Read more

I am no mountaineer, but without looking, I know the Himalayan range is growing taller. How do I remember this? Because the earth’s crust is made up of tectonic plates that are always moving. The edge of tectonic plates forms fault lines for earthquakes. Did you know, that at some point, coastal California will beRead more